We saw SEND HELP, starring Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien in a Sam Raimi film. This is Sherin and Kwesi with our First Reactions for Geek Girl Riot and RIOTUS. That sound you hear is us leaving the Motion Picture Association screening here in DC (click the video below for reactions and movie clips, keep scrolling for the review.)
THE HIGHLIGHTS AND A REVIEW
The setup is deceptively familiar: McAdams plays a woman who’s been overlooked in the corporate world—shy, socially awkward, underestimated, and treated like the office workhorse. O’Brien plays her boss: a wealthy, entitled, mediocre guy who doesn’t recognize her value and is quick to discard her.
Then they get on a plane… and crash on a deserted island. And the movie flips the power dynamic fast: she has real survival instincts—he absolutely doesn’t. From there, it becomes a chaotic, genre-mashing ride that’s funny, gnarly, and constantly escalating. SEND HELP is a twisted comedy where the central issue is “who survives?” but the main question is “what do these two people think they deserve—and what are they willing to do to get it?”
Performance-wise, we both thought the acting was convincing—and the movie is darkly funny and engaging. You won’t be bored, ever. We laughed a lot, sometimes because of the overkill, but SEND HELP is bloody, gross, and bombastic in the Sam Raimi tradition.
What surprised us most is how the movie keeps shifting who you want to root for. At the start, it’s very clear: it’s Linda. Then perceptions get murky. Bradley is never a “good guy,” but in context, he finds ways to be sympathetic. Not because the movie is confusing, but because it’s interested in showing different sides of both characters under pressure. The film also has a lot on its mind: class, entitlement, the myth of meritocracy, loneliness, and what happens when resentment and pain start rotting someone from the inside.
There’s a big focus on female rage running throughout, but it’s not presented as a clean catharsis. It’s messy, dubious, frustrating, and—at times—justifiable. At other times you don’t know which character to give a bigger middle finger: Bradley or Linda. Without spoilers, Zuri (Edyll Ismail) made up our minds for us. All of that makes SEND HELP hit a cultural nerve. It’s not an empowerment arc; it’s about the corruptive effects of both power and powerlessness. And if you ever wondered what a forced-proximity romance would look like as a twistedly comedic blood feud—Sam Raimi is here for you.
That’s where our CARRIE comparison comes in: depending on how audiences connect with that anger and the release valve the movie offers, this could become a cult hit. We can see people dressing up as Linda or writing think pieces on what lies beneath the shipwrecked surface.
SEND HELP also plays with the structure of a stranded “forced proximity” romance, as I mentioned. Then it flips our expectations into hell. There are multiple fake outs where you think you know what kind of movie you’re in… and then it swerves.
Our main knock: The ending. We can’t spoil it, but we both left dissatisfied—not because the film wasn’t engaging (it never got boring), but because the ending feels like an easy out when the rest of the movie earned something truly shocking and demented.
Bottom line: SEND HELP is an effective blood-soaked harpooning of office politics in a top dog versus underdog comedy-thriller. If that’s your thing, go inunspoiled. But don’t expect a razor-sharp character study; that’s not what this is. This is for those who want a twisty, aggressive, genre-blending survival nightmare with its eyebrow arched at gender and class dynamics
Also: Dennis Haysbert pops up—briefly, but memorably.
SEND HELP crash lands in theaters nationwide on Jan 30
file under: Lord of the Flies, but make it a bloody reverse romantic comedy